Disclaimers – Charlie, Don and the situation used in this fic do not belong to me. Please, do not try to sue; you won't get much, I promise!

Spoilers – Plenty for Episode 6 of Season 1 – Sabotage.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Memories and Consequences

They say your life flash before your eyes before you die. Numerically that's impossible, there is just x amount of seconds in which that can happen, the billions of seconds you've lived can not all be squashed into those few seconds: it is impossible.

I guess what happened to me I'd have thought would also be impossible, but it has reminded me of the one thing I tend to forget when doing my calculations. Time is not constant; it can inexplicably be stretched to infinity. How do I know this? Yesterday it happened to me…

I helped my big brother Don on a case yesterday. That's not as rare an occurrence as you might think, as a doctorate in math I've helped him out quite a number of times. But yesterday something happened that I wasn't prepared for, something that had shaken me to the core. I had sent my brother to his death.

We were working on a case involving railroad sabotage. Somebody was recreating accidents that were caused by railroad negligence. After finally realizing whom the culprit was Don and his team, as well as local police patrolled the lines for the saboteur. Since there are not enough police in the entire state to patrol all lines they asked me to pinpoint the most likely train that would be used. Thus, being the train the saboteur would most likely be at. It isn't as difficult as you'd assume, if you compare the data between the original train and those on the lines you'd easily find the ones most likely to be targeted. Well I sent my brother to one most likely to be the target, and I was right. I knew I'd be, but I didn't think of what that would mean for my brother. I didn't think about the human aspect…

The saboteur was there, at the train. A train, I might add, which were filled with nuclear material. To top it all, said saboteur were strapped with enough explosives to blow up Himself, Don and the entire train with said nuclear material. So not only did I send my brother right into deaths path, there was a very real chance the entire LA skyline could soon be covered in a cloud of nuclear waste - not something to consider on an empty stomach.

In those seconds, the agonizing time it took Don to let me know he was fine, that the situation was resolved, I didn't see my life flash before my eyes, as I've previously stated, that is impossible and besides I knew I wasn't dying, except there was the chance of the nuclear blast, but I didn't dwell on that. I did however see Don and myself as children, playing catch in the backyard. I saw him running away from me after school, trying to keep some semblance of distance between us, for fear of what his friends would do if they knew his annoying little brother was following him again.

I can see a rift forming between us. Me trying desperately to get to him but the rift just kept on growing bigger and bigger. This rift started to form in high school. Don became more aware of the fact that he, my older brother by five years, were taking some of the same classes as me. I guess his pride took a knock and he decided to push me away because of it. As a ten year old boy I didn't understand why my older brother acted that way, he was my idol, I wanted to please him, but he kept pushing me away further and further. Just as the rift I saw kept moving in opposite directions. It didn't stop growing all through his time at Quantico. It finally did come to a stop during the time we all needed each other most. During my mom's illness and death.

I tried at that moment to let my mind shift to my mom, to feel the warmth brought just by remembering her, but my mind pressed on, showing images of Don and me together.

The rift had now stopped moving, but for a few agonizing moments nothing happened. I could see mirages of Don's young and older self at the other side. There's no way for either of us to get to the other, even though that was the only thing I wanted, no I guess I needed to do. I need my brother. It's a difficult thing to admit, but it's the truth, I can get through a lot, but if I have to lose him, I just can't get myself to contemplate that position.

Then the rift started to slowly close as of itself. As it started to get closer, the different mirages of Don started to disappear until I could only see the current Don standing there. My rock, one of only two constants in my life, minus the numbers of course was back with me.

I slowly closed my eyes, trying to rid it of the images, waiting for news on what's happening. Since the seconds spent reliving our childhood and the slip that followed felt like years, I guess the time spent without any feeling or knowledge of what went on around me can only be described as eternity.

When I finally heard Dons' voice coming over the headphones, I wanted to write it of as my imagination, but something inside told me not too. I just knew that my big brother was alive, he was still there, still my rock.

As if this entire occurrence wasn't strange enough. Enough of a stretch of your sense of reality, what happened last night can only be described as a miracle, or some type of brothers intuition, I don't know…

Don thanked me for what I'm doing for him and the FBI. He actually told me he was proud of me. My big brother is proud of me! For somebody blaming himself for almost causing his brothers' death, that meant more than any accolade I could ever receive.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N – Yay, my first Numb3rs fic! Hope you liked. I just felt that more could be said about those anxious moments for Charlie.

P.S – English isn't my first language, so please let me know if there is any obvious mistakes.

P.P.S – Thanks to Wile E. Coyote for pointing out the mistake with loose and lose. That's one of those things I know but almost always get wrong. I'll definitely look out for it a bit more from now on. Thanks a lot for the review, it's much appreciated!

Snippie.